VIS220: artist research

Peter Edlund

I'm inspired by the beauty of these works, the scale and the attention paid to historical accuracy, political and environmental commentary. Totally up my alley with this project.


Peter Edlund’s paintings draw from a wide range of sources inspired by art history and literature in order to reinterpret landscapes with a political overlay. Often his work comments on racism and invisibility, social traits woven deeply into the fabric of American society.

In 2005 he began researching indigenous North American languages and cultures in order to understand the origin of the place-names (lakes, rivers, cities, states) around us — words that have become an underlying part of our geography, but whose original meanings and sources are lost. From these studies he has created “translation” paintings of place-names in New England, Kansas, California and most recently New York State.
(source)



"... I feel compelled to address the collective amnesia of American society by using the “landscape” as my means of expression, purposefully taking this apparently romantic and apolitical genre and injecting it with politics and historical accuracy." Peter Edlund


Sarah McCoubrey

I'm touched by the delicate beauty of this artist's work. Just painting life directly without embellishment is a powerful way to see reality in a new way.



"There has been a debate for centuries over whether man’s incursions should be considered natural. McCoubrey’s answer seems to be that, while humanity’s effects on the planet can have devastating consequences, they are not only subsumed, but also to an important extent ignored, by nature. More importantly, her work is a stimulus to seeing. Her paintings make us aware and appreciative of scenes we may pass every day without paying attention. They also cause us to question what we see as normal, or natural. Whether we can shift the norm is up to each of us. "
- Vincent Katz, Sarah McCoubrey: Looking for the Normal, 2008 (source)


Charlottle Shulz

Such skilled use of the qualities of paper and charcoal... how attention is drawn to the materiality of the paper... I love how closely you need to ponder these drawings to enter into the artist's post-apocalyptic world.







"Small private histories set against large collective experiences are the concepts driving my large-scale, intricate charcoal drawings. I shape and disrupt the picture plane by tearing, folding, and distressing the paper while rendering images such as domestic interiors, geological formations, objects, and weather, in which an evolving narrative emerges as I draw. Informed by extensive reading and image banks, my work draws upon personal and cultural memories, news events, Buddhist teachings, art, and poetry. My aim in this progression is to viscerally amplify a visual correspondence to forces felt in the world and in us—forces both intimate as well as social and environmental." - Charlotte Shulz